By News Desk
The presidency has said that criticism of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari by former president Olusegun Obasanjo arose “out of frustration.”
He said the former president’s attitude towards Buhari was the height of selfishness and little short of “moral misery”.
The presidency affirmed this in a statement from one of its spokesmen, Garba Shehu, on Monday.
The statement was in response to Obasanjo’s letter to Nigerians on New Year’s Day about his choice of presidential candidate ahead of the February 25 election.
The former president not only endorsed Labor Party (LP) candidate Peter Obi for the election, but also said the past seven and a half years of Buhari’s administration have been stressful for many Nigerians.
He said that during the period, Nigeria went “from the frying pan to the fire”.
“The last seven and a half years have certainly been hectic and stressful years for many Nigerians. We have gone from the frying pan to the fire and from the mountaintop to the valley. Our leaders have tried their best, but their best has turned out not to be the best for Nigeria and Nigerians at home and abroad. For most Nigerians, it was hell on earth,” Obasanjo said.
In his response, titled “Morally sleazy Obasanjo attacks leaders out of frustration,” Shehu said that Obasanjo used the word “hell” for the administration of any of the presidents who succeeded him and that they refused to be his puppet.
“……….to say that ‘frying pan’ is the situation in Nigeria right now should be interpreted as a personal experience for him and we know what that means. “Hell” for Obasanjo is when a president, any president who comes after him, refuses to be his own puppet, to do whatever he wants on all matters at all times.
“Then he keeps attacking out of frustration.
“Obasanjo’s vindictive attitude towards President Buhari is the height of selfishness and little short of moral misery,” Shehu wrote.
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Read Mr. Shehu’s full statement below.
full text of Presidency response To chief Obasanjo’s Letter Title: OBASANJO MORALLY SQUALIDO ATTACKS LEADERS OUT OF FRUSTRATION
Thank you for seeking our reaction.
Former President Obasanjo is so well known to all that no one needs to describe who he is.
But, four things we would like to say:
One is that he will not stop attacking President Muhammadu Buhari because the former president will not stop being jealous of anyone who surpasses him in a new record in the process of developing the nation.
President Buhari is ahead of Chief Obasanjo in all fields of national development and to do so is a cardinal sin for Obasanjo, whose hallucinations tell him that he is the best Nigeria has ever led and there will never be another better than him.
President Buhari has just completed the world-class building that is Niger’s Second Bridge after three decades of failed promises. He is now awaiting its launch.
Obasanjo laid the turf for the bridge in his first term as president-elect, and work never began.
When he sought re-election to his second term in office, he returned to the site to turf the bridge a second time. When reminded by the blunt and learned Obi of Onitsha that he had done this in the past, Obasanjo told the main traditional ruler of the southeast that he was a liar, in the full presence of the Chiefs and Oracles in his palace.
Obasanjo lied to the Southeast to get their votes. President Buhari did not get the votes from him, but he built the bridge because he believed it was the right thing to do.
Two, President Buhari had been racking up awards and accolades for trying to do what the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria says a leader must do: serve one or a maximum of two terms and walk away.
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President Buhari has been affirming and reaffirming that he will oversee a better election than the one that brought him into office and he will leave when it is due.
Having attempted the tenure extension and failed, Obasanjo’s fictional mind must be telling him that he is the one under attack.
But he is not on President Buhari’s radar because experience has shown, especially of late in West Africa where there have been at least three successful coups and many other failed attempts, that a third term or term extension is a recipe for political instability.
In addition, all African leaders named President Buhari the Continent’s Anti-Corruption Champion.
You cannot be an anti-corruption champion if you “meddled and broke the rules”, bearing the rotten responsibility for what happened to national assets in the name of privatisation, as the Nigerian Senate documented in 2011.
As an idea, the Nigerian aluminum smelting company, ALSCON, which was set up with $3.2 billion, was sold to a Russian company, Russal, for $130 million. Delta Steel, which was created in 2005 at a cost of $1.5 billion, was sold to Global Infrastructure for just $30 million.
ALSCON recovered $120 million for dredging of the Imo River, which never took place.
Three, which is related to the previous one, is the increasing profile of President Buhari as a champion of democracy, not just at home and in the West African sub-region, but across the African continent.
As president, Obasanjo destabilized internal democracy by orchestrating impeachment after impeachment of governors who failed to deliver on his highly imperial stewardship.
As we said a while ago, Mr. Obasanjo’s tenure, 1999-2007, represented the dark days of Nigerian democracy due to a series of attacks on the constitution.
The former president deployed federal machinery to remove Governors Joshua Dariye, Rashidi Ladoja, Peter Obi, Chris Ngige and Ayo Fayose. They were the then governors of Plateau, Oyo, Anambra, Anambra and Ekiti, respectively, unjustly removed using the police and secret services under his command.
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Under his command, a five-man legislature met at 6:00 am and “impeached” Governor Dariye on the Plateau; 18 members out of 32 removed Governor Ladoja de Oyo from his position; in Anambra, APGA Governor Obi was similarly impeached at 5:00 am by members who failed to meet the two-thirds required by the constitution.
Under the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), the legislative powers of the Rivers State legislature were transferred to the federal parliament to punish Governor Amaechi for changing his political alliance.
Furthermore, Obasanjo condemned the Supreme Court and illegally withheld Lagos state revenue owed by federal sources due to his meanness against Governor Bola Tinubu.
On the other hand, in Washington a few weeks ago, US President Joe Biden in a meeting with African Heads of State and Government described President Buhari as a champion of democracy and a role model for the leaders of African states.
Clearly, Obasanjo has grown even more jealous by adopting a vindictive attitude.
Fourth, to say that “frying pan” is the situation in Nigeria at the moment should be interpreted as a personal experience for him and we know what that means.
“Hell” for Obasanjo is when a president, any president who comes after him, refuses to be his own puppet, to do as he pleases on all matters at all times.
He then continues to attack out of frustration.
Obasanjo’s vindictive attitude towards President Buhari is the height of selfishness and little short of moral misery.
Garba Shehu
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media
